Review - Batman: Arkham Asylum

THOUGH it may not be the boldest of claims (seeing as a lot of video games based on comic books aren’t very good) but Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best comic-to-video game adaptation ever.

The story follows the Dark Knight as he takes the Joker back to the infamous Arkham Asylum. But as usual things quickly get out-of-hand as the Joker and his henchman take control of the asylum. And so begins what must be one of the longest night in Batman’s storied crime fighting career.

Easily the most noticable strength of the game is the hand-to-hand combat. An intuitive counter system as well as Batman's incredible agility ensure that fighting off hordes of Batman's foes is never a chore and is actually something to look forward to. Of course an all out assault isn’t always the best idea, but luckily when it comes to stealth nobody does it better than Batman.

Every so often you’ll encounter a room filled with armed enemies that you must take down before advancing, but the problem is that Batman is no super-hero and can only take a few shots before going down for the count. This is were gadgets like your Batarangs, explosive gel and grappling gun come in handy as you hide in the shadows and take out your enemies one by one. Another tool at your disposal is 'dectective vision' - a filter that highlights items of interest as well as letting you see through walls, monitor your enemy's alert level and ultimately plan your attacks much more easily.

When you need a break from combat or silently stalking your enemies there are a host of puzzles set up by the Riddler to be solved. These side quests can involve finding trophies, hidden question marks or identifying personal items of famous inmates (such as Catwoman and Two-Face) to then unlock bonus material such as character profiles or 3D models for the gallery. However the best unlockable content is the challenge maps, which are arenas outside of the main story mode that focus on either facing a series of enemies in direct combat for points or taking down bad guys using stealth techniques.

All of these different elements come together to ensure there's a perfect mix of stealth, detective work and straight up combat which means players aren’t constantly doing the same thing over and over again.

The atmosphere of Arkham Asylum is incredible; the art style alone is impressive but the real star here is the audio, and in particular the voice work of Mark Hamill as the Joker and the taped interviews with the Arkham inmates that are scattered throughout the game.

On top of all of this are hidden relics that help you discover more about Arkham Asylums secret past, an experience points system that allows you to upgrade Batman's suit and gadgets and a number of brilliant encounters with Scarecrow and his hallucogenic gas, one of which left me absolutely speechless.

The only downside to this whole experience is the collector's edition, which is poorly made and very over-priced. Here in Australia we received the UK version of the collector's edition, which means our character profile book is of similar paper stock as the game's manual and is not leather-bound like in the US. One area where every region got screwed is the Batarang. This chunk of scratched plastic, stuck to a cheap stand no less, is beyond disappointing. How am I going to threaten anybody with this? I would take it off the stand, but it'd probably break. The UK version also lacks the big bat-shaped box used to house all of these extras, and instead comes in a cheap black cardboard box. But still, as disappointing as this is it's hardly the developers fault, so there's no point taking it out on their excellent game.

Aside from the aforementioned packaging issues, everything about Batman: Arkham Asylum just feels right – the fighting, the stealth sections and the overall atmosphere have been finely tuned to fit perfectly within the Batman universe. And truth be told, everything mentioned in this review is just a taste of what is waiting for you in this deep and intelligently designed experience.

Though the coming months will see a lot of great titles being released it’s not hard to imagine Batman: Arkham Asylum being on a lot of people’s games of the year lists. Mine included.

GRADE: A

Available on the Xbox 360 (version reviewed), PlayStation 3, PC. Story mode was played to completion with the vast majority of Riddler's puzzles solved. Review guidelines